Effect of stabilizer type on the mechanical properties of rigid poly(vinyl chloride). I

The effect of stabilizers on the mechanical properties of UPVC and how these are affected by different formulations has been studied. Three stabilizers, tin mercaptide MT, lead system Pb, and Ba/Cd/Zn complex BCZ, were used. A high -intensity blender was used for dry blend compounding, and the blend was injection -molded on a Kuasy single Screw injection molding machine. A two -cavity mold was made for forming the specimens. The specimens were tested for their impact strength, fracture toughness, tensile strength, and flexural strength. Increasing MT stabilizer was shown to increase the tensile strength and to decrease fracture toughness, impact strength, and ductility; this was attributed to antiplasticization. Increasing the Pb stabilizer conferred ductility and improved fracture toughness and impact strength. It is concluded that stabilizers have a marked effect on the mechanical behavior of rigid PVC.     

Total phenolic contents and antioxidant activity of corn tassel extracts

Ground corn tassels, a by-product of corn, were used as a source of phenolic compounds. Water, ethanol, methanol, acetone, hexane, chloroform, butanol, petroleum ether and methylene chloride were evaluated as different polarity solvents to extract these phenolic compounds. Ethanol exhibited the highest extraction ability for such phenolic compounds, followed by methanol and water, where the total phenols were 0.1575%, 0.1125% and 0.0737%, respectively. Antioxidant activity of corn tassels ranged from 83.0% to 85.2%, 69.9% to 83.7%, 69.8% to 80.4%, 22.2% to 49.1% and 14.8% to 19.3% radical scavenging activity (% RSA) for ethanol, methanol, acetone, butanol and water extracts, respectively. The ethanolic extract of the corn tassels was successfully utilised to retard the oxidation of sunflower oil and the obtained induction period values were comparable to those of tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ).     

Isolation of a novel mutant strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by an ethyl methane sulfonate-induced mutagenesis approach as a high producer of bioethanol

In order to obtain mutant strains showing higher bioethanol production than wild-type strains, a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae type was subjected to mutagenesis using ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS). After adding EMS to a shaken yeast suspension, the viability of yeast cells was assessed by diluted sample inoculation to solid yeast-extract peptone glucose (YEPG) medium at 15-min intervals. At 45 min, the viability of yeast cells was estimated to be about 40%. Mutagenized cells were recovered from YEPG broth after incubation at 30 degrees C for 18 h. After this period, EMS-treated yeast cells were grown on solid aerobic low-peptone (ALP) medium containing 2-12% (v/v) ethanol. All plates were incubated at 30 degrees C for 2-6 d in order to form colonies. The mutant strains that tolerated high concentrations of ethanol were selected for bioethanol production in microfuge tubes containing fermentation medium. Formation of bioethanol in small tubes was detected by the distillation-colorimetric method. In addition, trehalose content and invertase activity were determined in each mutant strain. Among many isolated mutant strains, there were six isolated colonies that grew on ALP medium supplemented with 10% (v/v) ethanol and one of them produced bioethanol 17.3% more than the wild type.     

Optimization of time delay systems by hybrid functions

A method for finding the optimal control of a linear time varying delay system with quadratic performance index is discussed. The properties of the hybrid functions which consists of block-pulse functions plus Taylor series are presented. The method is based upon expanding various time functions in the system as their truncated hybrid functions. Operational matrices of integration and delay are presented and are utilized to reduce the solution of an optimazation problem to the solution of algebraic equations. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the technique.     

MCR-NAS: A combined hard-soft multivariate curve resolution method based on net analyte signal concept for modeling kinetic data with inert interference and baseline drift

This paper demonstrates a novel implementation of a net analyte signal (NAS) algorithm for resolving kinetic model. The evaluation of spectroscopic kinetics data by the established hard-modeling approach assumes that all the variation related to the response is linked to the species involved in the kinetic process. If effects are present in the data that cannot be explained by the model, such as baseline drift or inert interference, the estimated rate constant might be incorrect. An iterative net analyte signal procedure is shown to yield good rate constant estimates when the spectroscopic data is influenced by additional sources of variance. Simulated and real examples are used to confirm this statement.     

A stochastic model for austenite phase formation during arc welding of a low alloy steel

Modeling the microstructure of heat-affected zone (HAZ) in weld area can be useful in predicting mechanical behavior of the weldment. A multi-scale model is proposed to calculate the temperature distribution and to predict the microstructure evolution within the HAZ. Finite difference method was used to develop a computer model for studying the cooling curves during welding, and a stochastic method to analyze the austenite formation and its grain growth in HAZ. The droplet of liquid metal detached from electrode in manual arc metal welding is an important concern in studying the temperature distribution and the austenite grains growth. Both heat content of liquid metal detached from electrode and heat generated by electrical arc were used in calculation of temperature distribution. The stochastic model simulates the austenite phase formation and its growth during welding based on the kinetics of these processes. With this model, it is possible to visualize the topology of austenite phase. This multi-scale model was applied to the welding of low alloy steel. The observed morphology was in good agreement with that predicted by the model.     

Thermal analysis of compact solar water heater under local climatic conditions

Extensive experimental studies on a compact solar water heater were carried out, in order to evaluate the performance of the heater and determine the optimal depth of the storage tank. The experiments were conducted for tank depths of 5, 10 and 15 cm with single and double glazing. Experimental results show that a temperature rise of about 68 °C during the month of July at storage tank depth of 10 cm can be achieved by the heater. The 10 cm depth of the tank is optimum which can supply hot water for 24 h. The rise of water temperature is slightly higher in the case of single glazing than the double glazed system, while the double glazed system is more effective in retaining higher temperatures during night hours.     

A Bipartite Genetic Algorithm for Multi-processor Task Scheduling

Until now, several methods have been presented to optimally solve the multiprocessor task scheduling problem that is an NP-hard one. In this paper, a genetic-based algorithm has been presented to solve this problem with better results in comparison with related methods. The proposed method is a bipartite algorithm in a way that each part is based on different genetic schemes, such as genome presentation and genetic operators. In the first part, it uses a genetic method to find an adequate sequence of tasks and in the second one, it finds the best match processors. To evaluate the proposed method, we applied it on several benchmarks and the results were compared with well known algorithms. The experimental results were satisfactory and in most cases the presented method had a better makespan with at least 10% less iterations compared to related works.     

Ranking proposed models for attaining surface free energy of powders using contact angle measurements

This study is an attempt to evaluate the applicability of various proposed mathematical models to calculate the surface free energy of commercially available powders. The capillary rise experiments were employed to achieve the contact angle between 15 powders and seven corresponding liquids by means of the modified Lucas–Washburn's equation. The surface free energy of powders was then calculated using different models inclusive of Owens/Wendt, harmonic mean, van Oss et al., combined mean (i.e. the combination of Owens/Wendt and harmonic mean models) and Li/Neumann models. Mathematical approaches were used to assess the accuracy of the calculated surface free energy and its components for different powders. A series of first-, second- and third-order functions as well as an exponential one were developed and put to test for one-, two- and three-parameter variables of liquid surface tension. Unfortunately, all such functions did not perform well in correctly estimating the contact angles of the liquid/powder systems (i.e. r² range being 0.48–0.68 and PF/3 range being 114–312). On the other hand, a series of trained artificial neural networks (ANNs) comparatively gave good correlations, predicting with unsurpassed accuracy the contact angles of the same corresponding liquid/powder systems (i.e. r² range being 0.93–0.94 and PF/3 range being 30–55). Therefore, the attained and tested ANNs were used further to provide the surface free energy of the 15 powders. In addition, the ANNs were also employed to rank the surface free energies of powders as well as their corresponding components as calculated by other models. The results showed that the geometric mean model was able to calculate the surface free energy of powders with more accuracy than all the other models.     

SiO2–PbO–CaO–ZrO2–TiO2–(B2O3–K2O), A New Zirconolite Glass–Ceramic System: Crystallization Behavior and Microstructure Evaluation

Zirconolite (CaZrTi₂O₇) is a mineral that has a high containment capacity for actinides and lanthanides and is considered to be a good candidate for the immobilization of radioactive wastes. The glass–ceramic technique seems to be a very suitable and convenient method to produce zirconolite crystals by precipitating them in a specific glass matrix. In this study, development of a new zirconolite-based glass–ceramic belonging to SiO₂–PbO–CaO–ZrO₂–TiO₂–(B₂O₃–K₂O) system was investigated. The presence of PbO, together with B₂O₃ and K₂O, allowed the preparation of a X-ray diffraction (XRD) amorphous glass with a relatively high concentration of ZrO₂ and TiO₂, which was successfully converted to a glass–ceramic containing 34 wt% of zirconolite after heating at 770°C for 4 h. Differential thermal analysis, XRD, scanning electron microscope, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to determine the crystallization conditions, identify the crystallized phases, determine their compositions and quantities and observe and analyze the microstructures. The zirconolite crystals showed a platelet morphology with a monoclinic structure characterized by a =1.246 nm, b =0.7193 nm, c =1.128 nm, and β=100.508°.